How to Stop Beating Yourself Up

This CD, by Bodhipaksa, is ideal for anyone who has a tendency of being too hard on themselves. Woven through its guided meditations are the four skills of self-compassion: mindful awareness, acceptance, self-kindness, and realistic perspectives on life.

Most of us are far too hard on ourselves. We doubt our own worthiness. We talk to ourselves unkindly and often sacrifice our own well-being in order to “get things done.” Often we fear that if we stop criticizing ourselves we’ll cease to perform well.

Paradoxically, though, it’s people who lack self compassion who are more prone to stress and burnout, while self-compassionate individuals are more emotionally resilient, better able to face challenges, and overall more effective.

Self-compassion can be learned. It arises from developing four skills:

Mindful awareness, which helps us to recognize our mental habits, including that of giving ourselves a hard time

Acceptance, which allows us be with our suffering without reacting to it or seeing it as a sign of failure

Self-kindness, which helps us, in the face of difficulties, to give support, encouragement, and compassion to ourselves

Realistic perspective on life, which help us to see our problems in a balanced and mature way

Each of those skills—which are woven into the four guided meditations on this CD—can be learned through practice.

Self-compassion helps us to relearn our own intrinsic worth as human beings, and is an essential step toward having true compassion for others.

Bodhipaksa has been a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order since 1993. He started practicing meditation almost 10 years before that. He runs an online meditation center at Wildmind.org, and has published several books, including Wildmind: A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditation, and Living as a River: Finding Fearlessness in the Face of Change.

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